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Tuesday, October 22, 2013

What a great week! First off Phi started a new book. She got 9 chapters into the classic "Charlotte's Web". Since it is not available for Kindle we lucked out when the teacher had a few extra copies. We will be focusing on fantasy vs realism in this story.

Setting is important so this week Phi was assigned a setting map for Wilbur and his barnyard friends. We went back and read the section that described the barn. I love that she even added the flies.

For Math we are beginning to study multiplication. This week really focused on the concept. Her worksheet showed her 3 different ways to draw out multiplication problems. She could use groups, arrays or number lines. My favorite was the arrays, a simple concept of lines and dots. Last year we tried teaching Phi the concept of multiplication and she didn't really get it. I think after this week she is understanding it a lot more.

For social studies we read about the Haudenosaunee tribe and how they developed a government and laws in order to keep peace within the nations. We discussed what governments are and what they do. We listed 2 things that the Haudenosaunee laws did and 2 things US laws do.

For science we started a new chapter all about ecosystems. After a little searching on Pinterest I thought we could make our own little ecosystem. This was Joey and Phi's project for the week and they rocked it! First Phi drew up her ecosystem and listed the things she would need. We made a stop at Petco for water plants and small aquarium snails. The awesome Petco employee gave them to us for free! We also had to buy some gravel. Then we headed to BevMo to grab a bottle of Voss water. It was a great shape and clear, perfect for their ecosystem. Then a stop at ToysRUs for a $5.00 package of sea monkeys (brine shrimp). They put everything together in steps, after everything was added they put is a little bit of algae from a puddle in the front yard.

This was such a fun project for Phi and Joey. They built a little ecosystem where all the parts of the community work together to keep the ecosystem going. She wrote a short paragraph about how each component works in her ecosystem for when she presents it to her class.

Week 10 includes a field trip to a pumpkin patch! Can't wait to find out what else we get to work on!